News and information from the DB2 LUW Technical support team.

There you are merrily going about your DB2 LUW work when you have to call in to get some assistance on a problem you've encountered. Little do you know that the first words you may hear from a support analyst are, "That version of DB2 is out of support"

Unlike many other products out there today, software doesn't have a best before date on the box and smelling the CD/DVD's to see if it is still fresh will only get you some strange looks. In many cases you probably don't even have a box or a CD/DVD as you downloaded the product from Passport Advantage. How are you supposed to know that a product is going out of support?

The IBM Software Support Lifecyle web site holds the key to that freshness Besides explaining the Lifecycle policy you can also view when IBM products GA'd and their End of Service dates. Have a look at the site to see which of the products you own are coming close to their end of support date. This way you will have time to make decisions on what to do next. Perhaps migrate to the latest version or purchase a Service Extension. Either way, don't forget that everything these days has a best before date, from cereal to software be aware.[Read More]

DB2 LUW V8 is going out of support or out of service April 30, 2009?,Just like any other product you may encounter in your day to day activities, software has a lifecycle as well. It's almost like a best before date. Even though the software still works it's time to move to a newer release.

Provide a minimum of 5 years of product technical support beginning at the planned availability date of the version/release of the product.

Ensure support is available for all IBM components of a product or until the product or bundle is withdrawn from support. In addition, all components of a bundle have a common End of Service date.

Publish a notice of support discontinuance ("End of Service") for a product at least 12 months prior to the effective date.

Align the effective date of support discontinuance ("End of Service") to occur on common dates either in the months of April or September.

Make support extensions available, for an additional fee, for a minimum period of three (3) years following the product's effective support discontinuance date. Support extensions are designed to allow migration to the current release to be successfully completed.

As per the policy state above the announcement came out a while ago so many people will have either forgotten or never even received the information. I'm hoping to post about the new method to receive information such as this in the near future. This is my start on getting the word out. Many customers are planning now for what they need next year so they should include this in their plans.

The DB2 LUW migration portal is a good site to be aware of as well as it will help you know what is needed in order to upgrade to a newer release.

For Service Extensions the customer's sales rep. should place a Special Bid Request for a Service extension on DB2 LUW.If the customer does not have a sales rep. they can call Inside Sales.Inside sales for US , Customers or reps can call 888-426-4343, option 3 and ask for a Service Extension on DB2 LUW. Customers in other geographies should refer to the following site to find inside sales contact #'s Planetwide [Read More]